


more like spears than hearts

by AlexSeanchai



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Butterfly Adrien Agreste, F/M, Guardian Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Heart Attacks, Identity Reveal, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parent-Child Relationship, Podfic Welcome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26354182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexSeanchai/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: —Adrien's pocket is supposed to beempty.It must be a pin, Adrien observes, feeling its butterfly clutch fastener, with four long pieces that might be thin sheet metal, cut and curved like narrow leaves around a central cabochon—Like leaves, or like the stylized wings of a pinned butterfly.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 68
Kudos: 281





	1. sweet on the verge of spoiling

Adrien slips his hand in his pocket again, thumbing the four-leaf clover carved into the square jade bead, clinking his ring off the other beads so quietly that possibly not even Rena Rouge could hear it, even if they were as close to Adrien as Lila is right now. Which is at least a couple meters too close, even though it could be worse (she's currently on the _opposite_ side of the dessert table), but he has to keep dealing with it. After all, she _is_ attending Nicoletta Béringer's eightieth birthday gala at Adrien's own invitation and, technically, as his date.

Marinette would be much more fun to chat with, Adrien thinks, leaving her charm in his pocket to serve himself a pear's worth of Poire belle Hélène next to the three cannoli for Plagg. (The pears poached in syrup with ice cream and chocolate are one of possibly only two desserts here that Adrien couldn't get at least as good from Tom & Sabine's. The other—pears poached in spiced red wine with ice cream—looks a bit too much like blood.) And most likely Marinette would be gowned in her own creation, possibly designed to match the feathered hat he's currently modeling, where Lila is wearing one of this season's Gabriel designs. If Marinette were here, then a couple of the senior designers from Gabriel Fashions competitors who keep joking about stealing Adrien away to model for them ("she's just joking, Father, don't worry, I wouldn't abandon you," Adrien assured Father a quarter hour ago, though the flat expression Father is still wearing suggests he knew Adrien might be lying) might be looking at what Mari—

Flat is one thing. Blank is another. Resting his head on the table? Father would never be so undignified.

Nathalie isn't here—dizzy spell this morning; Father's orders to stay home and rest—and no one else is at Father's table. "Father?" calls Adrien. Several heads turn.

"Oh! Poire à la Beaujolaise!" Lila leans over the table to serve herself some, or possibly just to brush Adrien's arm; he neither knows nor cares.

Father's doctor is worrying about his heart health, Adrien knows. Not important enough for Father or Nathalie to worry _Adrien_ over, clearly— "Father!"

No response.

None that matters, anyway: Adrien is halfway across the room before Lila finishes saying "Oh, Adrien, do calm down," and Father still isn't moving. Isn't blinking. Isn't _breathing_ —

"Call 112!" Adrien shouts, trying to remember the school's first-aid lessons. No response to shouting, nor to shaking his shoulder—get him on the floor, face up, Adrien remembers Mme Bustier saying—nothing in Father's mouth: pull tie loose, pin off, collar open: tilt his head back, lift his chin—airway clear, watch for breathing, listen and feel for breathing—ten seconds, still silent, still and silent except Plagg's hidden purr—

Compressions. _You're staying alive, staying alive_ — Arms straight, hands center of chest, five centimeters. _Feel the city breaking, everybody shaking_ — Don't check pulse: sucks to get chest compressions when one has a pulse, sucks worse not to when one hasn't, and Adrien doesn't even want to know—

 _People staying alive, staying alive_ —

Don't stop for rescue breathing, leave that to the experts— _Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive, ah, ha, ha, ha_ —

"I've got the AED," someone says, "let's get his shirt open—"

Lift hands between, Father's shirt buttons scatter: lift hands between, cloth napkin to dry: _Well now, I get low and I get high_ —

"Stand clear!" someone shouts. Adrien pulls back. Father's arms jerk.

"Do not touch patient," recites a recorded voice. "Analyzing rhythm." Five torturous seconds. Adrien twists at his ring. He might grumble at Plagg later for darting through his leg a moment ago; it didn't distract him, so he might not. "Do not touch patient. Analyzing rhythm." Dozens watching. Not a problem he can Cataclysm. "Start CPR."

Adrien's chest collides with the Gorilla's arm. The woman with the AED begins compressions on Father while Adrien tries to breathe.

There's empty chairs at a nearby table; Adrien lets the Gorilla guide him over to one. Someone already at the table—a grandmotherly type, judging by her white hair; he should probably recognize her—offers Adrien a glass of water. He murmurs a thank-you and smiles as brightly as he would if he weren't sweaty, sore-armed, heart pounding like it only ever has the time Ladybug fed herself to a tyrannosaur.

(Well. He tries to smile.)

"Shock advised. Stand clear," the recorded voice says. Adrien takes out his Marinette lucky charm. "Do not touch patient. Analyzing rhythm." Lila slides into the chair beside him, more easily ignored than the crowd blocking his view. "Do not touch patient. Analyzing rhythm." Adrien should call Nathalie. He doesn't know anything about Father's medications, or medical history, not really. "Start CPR." Or what Father ate recently, except for chicken Provençal tonight and not much of that. Nathalie might know.

"He's breathing," says the woman with the AED. "Sir, relax for me, okay?"

Breath means heartbeat. Air whooshes out of Adrien's lungs, and in again. "Thank God," says the grandmotherly woman.

 _Thank Sēquana,_ Adrien doesn't say aloud. Even less is he willing to say _Thank Tikki_. He wants—not Ladybug, she's stressed enough, but Nino or Ivan or Mylène or any of his friends who hand out hugs like candy. Or Marinette, if he's really lucky. Plagg's thrumming warmth radiating from somewhere around his own heart is reassuring, but small. He takes a drink, the water cool and soothing on his dry throat, and swipes his hand down his left thigh to clear off the condensation and sweat, and fumbles out his phone.

Nathalie's phone must be on, because it rings, but instead of her answering, he hears " _You have reached Nathalie Sancoeur, executive assistant to Gabriel Agreste. Leave your message and your contact details._ "

"I'm going to keep calling until you wake up and answer me," Adrien says, then hangs up and promptly redials.

EMTs rush into the ballroom, shooing part of the crowd out of their way. Adrien gets the voicemail box, hangs up, and doesn't immediately redial: the woman with the AED has left off trying to keep Father calm, and Adrien can hear Father whispering answers to one EMT's questions: "Gabriel Agreste. Grand Paris. Béringer gala. Heartburn?"

"Heartburn," Adrien repeats, under his breath. "Right." Father might even believe that, but Adrien knows that's something it's easy to confuse with the beginning of a heart attack. People need to _tell_ him things. He looks around for the woman who used the AED: "Madame Márquez?" Given name Karima, he thinks. Not one of the competitors' designers who was joking about making off with Adrien's pretty face twenty minutes ago, but she was part of that little knot of people.

"That's me," the woman says, smiling; she only flinches a little from the Gorilla's stare, and he relents when Adrien glares back at him. "You probably saved his life," Mme Márquez says.

"If he lives," Adrien says. The lucky clover bead of Marinette's charm bracelet is hidden in his clenched hand, but on either side there's optimistic pink and cheerful azure. "And you did more. Thank you," he tells her, not wanting to look away from the charm.

He can hear the rustle of her headscarf against the shoulders of her blouse. "I wouldn't have noticed in time." Probably true; Adrien shrugs. She continues, "You, miss, you'll take good care of your boyfriend, I hope?"

"Oh, of course I will!" Lila's cheer doesn't waver half enough.

Adrien realizes Lila's hand is on his arm and yanks himself clear. His phone vibrates in his hand, which even gives him an excuse: "Nathalie, they're taking Father to the hospital," he tells her, watching the EMTs load him onto the stretcher. "Gorilla's going to take Lila and me home—" For all that he's phrasing it like this is a certainty, when Adrien turns to the Gorilla, he knows his expression is pleading. "—and then he'll take you to the hospital waiting room. Okay?"

"I'll text your bodyguard," Nathalie says. The call disconnects.

Wonderful. Adrien pockets his phone and drinks some more water, standing to head back to—not the dessert table, not quite yet. He circles this table to the grandmotherly woman first: "May I ask a favor?" When she nods, he says, "Tell the janitorial staff I apologize for the mess?" Because there's an overturned plate on the floor over there, with two cannoli, some ice cream, and a pear splattered beside it.

"Ah, you take after your mother," she says. "I'll tell them."

Adrien nods, not sure whether to be glad his face is probably flushed enough already that no one will notice his blush. "Thank you for your kindness. What a way to spend a birthday," he adds, half to himself and already turning away, and hears her laugh.

These are small enough cannoli he can carry three in one hand easily, without even stealing a napkin, which (since these are cloth, not paper) he prefers not to do. But if he's going to contact anyone between here and being alone with Plagg (he thinks, knowing that if he'd called Cataclysm when he saw Father slumped over, his mask would be falling right now), he needs a free hand for his phone. So he needs to pocket Marinette's charm—

His right front pocket is supposed to be _empty_.

It must be a pin, Adrien observes, feeling its butterfly clutch fastener, with four long pieces that might be thin sheet metal, cut and curved like narrow leaves around a central cabochon—

Like leaves, or like the stylized wings of a pinned butterfly.

He glances at the rest of the pocket's contents, feeling the tingle he felt each time he's claimed a Miraculous, however temporarily. Ladybug's earrings may be bare metal on Adrien's ears, and no way are they black-dotted crimson when Ladybug is her civilian self, so it doesn't surprise him to find a Pokémon lapel pin: an enamel Butterfree, violet-winged, the line art silver-tone.

"Lila," Adrien asks when he gets back to the table, "did you see where Father's lapel pin went? An amethyst cabochon, I think—it's round and purple," he clarifies at Lila's blank look. "It went flying when I opened his collar." When she shakes her head, he turns his attention to the handful of other people who haven't gone back to the party. "Anyone?"

"I'll ask the janitorial staff to keep an eye out for it," says the grandmotherly woman.

"It's probably not important," Adrien lies, and smiles. "But thank you." To Gorilla, he adds, "Let's go."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am grateful to niqaeli and republic for their help with the medical and procedural details, even if I did ignore some of it in favor of not restructuring the whole chapter. The Bee Gees' "[Stayin' Alive](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNFzfwLM72c)" really does feature in CPR training for keeping the beat.
> 
> Titles from "[A Thousand Words for Goodbye](https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/1880312)" by Cheryl Dumesnil.
> 
> Any similarity you see to GalahadWilder's _[The Agreste Letters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16089623)_ is totally unintentional—though I did describe the initial premise to Discord, reread what I'd just said, and add something like "…so _Agreste Letters_ but not".


	2. ciabatta and currant jam

Rechecking the account books doesn't change the numbers: the bakery revenue has dropped compared to last month. Again.

Marinette ought, Sabine thinks, to be able to survive secondary education without stressing herself to death over things she has as little control over as Hawkmoth's impact on the income of businesses in his strike zone. Or on the existence of those businesses: Sabine's mostly thankful this Robostus attack stayed out of the neighborhood, but Marinette frets about the injured people and damaged property so much that Tom had to invoke parental authority to order her to stop worrying for an hour or three and come thrash him at a video game.

(Sabine saw her daughter flinch from Tom's tone of voice, too. There aren't words for the cold, sick feeling Sabine is triple-checking the business accounts to avoid.)

Marinette also ought to save—to be _able_ to save—her design earnings for her future. Except for that part she spends on making herself and her friends happy, or on the tools and materials she needs in order to make anything for her online store at all. It bothers Sabine enough that the new PvP game Marinette is now cheerfully pummeling Tom on is something Marinette bought Tom 'because you're the best': read, because she realized there was a reason Tom was putting off buying it for himself, even if Marinette doesn't know what that reason—

 _Ding-dong_.

Sabine thumbs off her tablet screen and goes downstairs. Adrien's at the door, tie knot loosened and without the jacket to match his slacks, trembling and fidgeting with the ring he always wears. "May I hug you?" he blurts—then blinks, dropping his gaze to Sabine's eyes from somewhere a little above her head.

She opens her arms. Adrien folds into her, his knees hitting the floor, and starts to sob.

No purple butterfly will touch this child today, Sabine thinks, holding on tight with one arm and leaning carefully to close the door behind him with the other. And someday she'd like to have a few words with Hawkmoth on the subject of making it necessary to fear one's own feelings. Either something awful has happened or Adrien just tipped over the point Marinette keeps teetering on, of damming up one's emotions to the point where letting any flow at all will be catastrophic.

Possibly both.

" _Ha_!" crows Marinette upstairs. "Victory!"

"Betrayed by my own flesh and blood," mourns Tom.

Adrien leaps away as though burned. "Sorry," he mutters, steadying Sabine with a hand on one shoulder.

"Don't worry about it, dear," Sabine assures him. "Would you like to come upstairs?"

His longing glance in that direction should be enough answer, but Adrien hesitates, then says "I don't want to intrude…"

"Nonsense, you're always welcome—and you came for Marinette, didn't you?" Adrien flushes; Sabine nods. "Tom," she calls up, "start the kettle? We have a guest." To Adrien she continues, gesturing him upstairs, "And a fine mother I'd be if I turned away my daughter's friend when he's hurting like this. Marinette would hate me!"

Adrien's mouth twists half upwards. "Wouldn't want that."

"Has your father done something?" Sabine asks, then realizes the obvious parallel may be at least one of false and intrusive. "—Only if you don't mind telling me, of course."

" 'Has your father done something'," Adrien repeats under his breath, disgusted, and shakes his head. "Not tonight."

"But other times," Sabine says. Asks. Prompts. Something. She is much better at dealing with children in danger when she and her bread peel can physically intimidate the source of the danger, and Adrien's father is not here.

Adrien snorts. "Ask Nino about my fifteenth birthday party." Adrien is closer to seventeen than fifteen, Sabine remembers. Adrien pauses a few stair risers past the master bedroom landing. "Um. I don't want to be rude, either, but—there's—I need to show Nino and Alya something," he says, fidgeting with something in his pocket, "and if I do that at the same time I show Marinette—and I really, _really_ don't want to be alone tonight, but Alya's parents have wrong ideas about mixed-gender sleepovers and Nino's mother got just enough of the right idea that he's not allowed to have me over and if I try to kidnap Marinette for a sleepover at my house she'll skin me and I'll deserve it—" Adrien stops, inhales, and keeps going: "But if you and Tom would be okay hosting and chaperoning, I think everyone's parents will be okay with it? And I'm—really rude. Sorry."

Well, she's not letting him leave _now_. "Come upstairs, dear. Let's get you something warm to drink, and that hug you were asking Marinette for."

Adrien pinks again, with a hint of a real smile.

* * *

" 'Intense'," Nino reads from the green apple card. " 'Extreme, passionate, strained'."

Alya slaps down a red apple almost at once, smirking; Etta and Ella both take a bit longer to consider before choosing their cards. Chris scoops up all three, shuffles them with eyes closed so he can't accidentally cheat in anyone's favor, and hands them over. Nino eyes the first one. "Remembering that Chris is the judge and I am not even a player," he says mildly (Alya winces), and lays down each card as he reads it aloud: " 'Boyfriends - We're just friends!' "

"Not boyfriends!" Chris says at once. "Not stinky brothers, either."

Ella bursts out laughing. Etta stuffs an orange slice in her mouth so she can pretend she isn't laughing too. Alya, who Nino knows very well wouldn't have played that card if Marinette or Adrien were in the room, rolls their eyes and checks their phone.

" 'Lightning'," Nino continues. " 'Electrical discharge between rain clouds, or between a rain cloud and the earth, or between a rain cloud and an idiot with a kite.' Or 'Pokémon - Cute cartoon monsters you gotta catch. What you do with them is up to you…' "

Chris thinks it over. "Intense is like strong, right?" When Nino nods, Chris says, "Lightning. 'Cause it's bright and loud and people get hurt."

"Electric-type Pokémon do that too," grumbles Ella, while Etta, quietly cheering, collects the green apple card. "And so do all the other types if they're powerful enough."

"Pokémon are games and stories," Chris says, dealing each Césaire one red apple card. "Lightning is real."

"Good point," says Nino, who hadn't had any idea Majestia and Knightowl weren't just comic book superheroes until Majestia caught the entire plane he was on. "And it is Alya's turn to judge."

"Time out. Look at this news alert." Alya set one on everyone who has ever been akumatized, Nino knows, the day after Heroes' Day proved it's possible to akumatize someone again. The alerts on Adrien's asshole father are almost always irrelevant—to the Ladyblog, anyway; reading the one Alya, trembling, shows him…

Nino grabs his phone and dials. He's expecting to leave a voicemail and immediately send a text, but Adrien says "I was just about to call you."

"I saw the news," Nino says, which has to be the least sympathetic way he's ever told Adrien anything. "Either you're spending the night at my place or I'm sneaking into that fortress with you, dude, no way am I leaving you alone tonight." He glances at Alya for permission, belatedly, since if Nino's at Adrien's tonight then Chris will have to spend the night here; Alya's giving him a somber thumbs-up, though, so that's all right.

"That's what I was about to call you about." Adrien sighs, a strangely flat sound—or no, Nino thinks, maybe not that strange. (How often, after all, does Adrien have to squash his emotions so his father doesn't call him dramatic? Scarily often!) "I'm at Marinette's. I need you and Alya. Sabine said she'll make sure it's okay with your parents if you both spend the night here."

"Uh." Nino frowns at the audio-only connection and hands Chris to Alya so Nino can go find his shoes. "I'm putting you on speaker. Alya's mom's working tonight's party, their dad had to go in because something's up with one of the leopards, and my mom's got her regular shift." Which means Alya's mom might have seen what happened, and Nino's mom might be one of the emergency room nurses dealing with what happens next. Nino is absolutely not going to say Alya's dad should be dealing with it instead, part because this is a bad time to tell Adrien that and part because Adrien's dad would give the poor leopard indigestion. "So I'm heading your way right now, unless you want Alya instead, but one of us has to stay with the terrors."

"What about Anansi?" Marinette asks; Nino bets she's hugging Adrien as she speaks. Half a heartbeat later, her father says, "Bring the kids."

"I'll tell Anansi to pick Etta and Ella up at the bakery," Alya says, already texting, and expertly ignoring the twins' expressions of confusion and dismay and half-hidden scheming. "And ask her to watch Chris too. Go get your shoes and coats," they tell all three kids. "We'll see what sweets M. Dupain has when we get there, okay?"

"But _why_?" Chris asks, plaintive.

"Do you know what a heart attack is?" Adrien asks. Someone with him audibly inhales.

"What Alya gets when Ella surprises them," Etta says at once, already stuffing bare feet into untied sneakers.

Chris glares at Etta. "What Alya gets when Ella _scares_ them."

"It is scary," Adrien says, sounding almost like he's crying, and silencing Ella's retort before she can do more than open her mouth. (Good. Alya is so much more easily startled now, they think for Miraculous reasons, and Nino is almost sure that's true of him; he's not sure about Alya, but he's definitely running out of ways to avoid the question.) "A heart attack—a real one, not Alya joking after you scare them—is when somebody's heart stops working. Maybe only for a minute, if other people notice fast enough. But if no one notices, or if it stops hard enough, or if the medics aren't good at their job, the heart might stop forever." Adrien huffs, like he's trying to smile. "But your maman and her friends are good at their jobs, right, Chris? So my father's in good hands."

"The best," Chris says, loyal, and starts putting away the scattered cards.

"Adrien, I'm sorry." Marinette sounds it, but what for? "You need to calm down. I do _not_ want to find out your akuma powers."

Adrien laughs; it sounds like it hurts. "I am not worried about little purple butterflies possessing me tonight."

Alya's patting themself down for phone, power banks, wallet, keys. "You should be! Fucking hate him," they say of Hawkmoth to nobody in particular. "Wish he'd die."

"Swear jar!" Ella shouts from her bedroom. Alya bites back another annoyed word and extracts a euro from her pocket.

"I wonder if that could be arranged," Adrien says. It only sounds like it isn't a joke because he's shaken up from having to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation on his own father. (Right?) "I bet it'd be easier if no one cared too much about asking him questions first."

Alya pauses in checking everyone has everything to mouth to Nino, _The fuck?_

"I'm pretty sure Ladybug and Chat Noir want Hawkmoth alive to stand trial," Nino says, certain of it.

Adrien huffs. "Move your keratinous scutum."

Etta laughs. "Swear jar!"

"Adrien doesn't have to pay the swear jar." Alya stares pointedly at Nino, almost-idly tapping their wrist: the place on their body where Wayzz's bracelet would be on his.

Which means those words probably mean _turtle ass_. Nino finishes tying Etta's shoelaces, trying not to shudder. (Did Chloé _tell_ Adrien— Nino trusts him, but Ladybug might not!) "We're moving."


	3. might open for the right tools

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …and then I was late posting my _own_ birthday update by _three_ days…

Émilie has looked more alive in the past few years than Gabriel looks in this hospital gown right now. Nathalie will not mention this to him, most likely; certainly not while anyone but Nooroo and Duusu might overhear. She listens to the doctor describing inferior ST-elevation myocardial infarction, ventricular fibrillation, percutaneous coronary intervention, without truly paying attention: she will remember and understand the words later, she will be able to repeat them verbatim now, but at the moment it's so much background noise; she clutches the clasp of her purse so as not to hear it.

Ladybug and Chat Noir are such obstinate, willful, spiteful children.

"I cannot take medical leave!" Gabriel says, in what would undoubtedly be a furious roar had he the strength. "There are far too many matters that require my personal attention!"

So speaks a man who has delegated almost all of his business tasks to various employees who rarely communicate with each other, keeping for himself only enough design and publicity work that no one doubts he spends many of his work hours working. So speaks a man who has forbidden his own most capable, most loyal assistant from touching his true work except in carefully planned bursts, even after his repair of the Peacock Miraculous ensured it will do her no further harm. So speaks a man who will be angry and fearful to observe that very pin on her blouse or the kwami in her purse, were she to let him notice either.

Beside her, M. Lloyd's expression flattens. Nathalie knows that look, though she doubts Gabriel does; it's the one where Adrien's bodyguard has opinions of Adrien's treatment that he dares not say out loud. As it were.

Nathalie does not disagree.

"Dr. Nguyen," Nathalie says, unlocking her tablet, "I am calling Gabriel's son; please explain this to him."

"M. Agreste?" asks the doctor. She doesn't quail at Gabriel's glare, but then neither might a skittish rabbit.

Gabriel grumbles. "Very well."

The call is meant to be over video, but when it finally connects, most of Nathalie's screen is dark. "Adrien?"

"How is he?" Adrien asks. He sounds like he has been crying, which explains both the delay and the lack of visual.

Nathalie tries to smile. It doesn't work. "Adrien," she orders, "tell your father he is to take medical leave from now until _multiple_ doctors hold the professional opinion that he is _fully_ recovered."

Ringing silence on both ends of the call.

Consciously, Nathalie gentles her tone. "I won't ask you to uncover your camera, but would you like to see him?"

" _Yes please_ ," Adrien says at once, so Nathalie enables the inset video of her own camera and turns the tablet till Gabriel is visible in the inset frame. Adrien audibly sobs with relief.

"There is no need to be dramatic," Gabriel mutters.

" _Dramatic_?" Adrien squawks. "Father, you almost died!" (Dr. Nguyen flinches minutely at Adrien's choice of pronoun: the professional 'vous', not the familial 'tu'.) "Half that ballroom was already planning how to grab our market share, the other half was thinking they were watching me become an orphan—I will be as dramatic as I want, and _you_ will do absolutely nothing for the next _as long as it takes_ except rest and get better!"

Adrien draws a loud shaking breath.

"I do not believe I just did that," he whispers.

"Listen to your doctors, M. Agreste," Nathalie tells Gabriel. "If only so your son does not worry unduly. I believe most of your business responsibilities are able to be delegated to trusted employees. I will take over certain personal projects myself, if you will permit me." Gabriel rejected the thought of Nathalie wielding the Butterfly when he needed Gabriel Agreste to join the list of those Hawkmoth akumatized, and he will reject that thought again with Nathalie's health so much more fragile, but there is no need for her to reopen that subject at all. Nathalie continues, "Lila Rossi has already proven herself capable; you know Adrien is intensely loyal and excels in all things he attempts; let me remind you of our discussion the morning of Mme Graham de Vanily's last visit."

It is hardly _Nathalie_ 's fault that Gabriel lost his temper at Adrien's suggestion that Nathalie should be the future Madame Agreste. Nor will she be telling him that the nurse (Farah Lahiffe, if Nathalie is not mistaken) addressed Nathalie _as_ 'Mme Agreste'.

Gabriel glares at her.

"While I would not embarrass our family name by trying to get out of existing agreements with Lila Rossi," Adrien says, voice flatter and steadier, "outside of that, I want nothing else to do with her. I'm sure several other people at the event were close enough to know exactly why. If there are other ways I can help Father—"

"A discussion for later," Nathalie says, making a mental note to find out what Adrien means. "I don't wish to waste Dr. Nguyen's time."

"Then hang up," Gabriel snaps. "Adrien has no need to concern himself with—"

"Nathalie," Adrien interrupts, "when you think Father is up to it, I want him to call Mme Bustier and thank her personally for teaching me CPR. Who he should thank for making sure I knew Father's heart health is something I should worry about that much, you two should figure out for yourself." He pauses just long enough for Nathalie to remember Émilie collapsing, to picture Gabriel in Émilie's place and Adrien in Gabriel's or in Nathalie's own. "Dr. Nguyen, I apologize for my outbursts. Please tell me what I need to know."

To Dr. Nguyen, Nathalie hands the tablet; to M. Lloyd, Nathalie murmurs "I'll be right back."

"Nooroo, akolouthei Nathalie," Gabriel snaps.

"Language, sir," Nathalie says as she leaves the room, feeling the insubstantial flicker first against one shin, then rising up her leg, that means a kwami phasing through her. It still amuses her that 'nūṟu', which if not Nooroo's original name is certainly a sound-alike, is Tamil for 'hundred'. She doesn't quite collide with the nurse—probably Farah Lahiffe; the physical resemblance to Adrien's friend is pronounced—and the nurse is the next person Nathalie intended to speak with anyway. "Where are M. Agreste's personal effects?"

"I'll bring them to him," the nurse says.

Nathalie nods and continues to the nearest ladies' restroom; it is far more likely than not that whoever removed Gabriel's clothing noticed nothing unusual about this pin, so she will refrain from drawing anyone's attention to the Butterfly Miraculous. She opens her purse once she has locked the door of the single-stall facility; Nooroo has joined Duusu there, as Gabriel ordered in ancient Greek. "Is this your doing?" Nathalie asks. "How much of this family will be lost to you?"

"I warned him," Nooroo says, avoiding her gaze.

"You said Adrien and Lila?" Duusu sounds cheerful enough that Nathalie wonders, again, how much Duusu understands of what happens around her. "If Adrien is as much like Miss Émilie—"

"I should warn you," Nooroo says, interrupting Duusu, who huffs. "But none of you will listen."

Perhaps Nathalie should thoroughly interrogate them both before telling Adrien everything. Of course, if Gabriel chooses to tell Adrien himself at last, the timing will not be in Nathalie's control. But Adrien will be delighted to help his family, and he and Lila Rossi are both young enough and strong enough—of an age with almost all of Ladybug and Chat Noir's team, and likely of an age with the pestilences themselves—that wielding a Miraculous should be no burden to either one.

Nathalie's phone rings while she is finishing up on the toilet. It stops ringing while she is washing her hands, and alerts her of a text from Gabriel moments later. The Butterfly Miraculous will be back in his hands, then.

> _Gabriel Agreste:_ Émilie's amethyst pin is missing.

—Fuck.

* * *

Adrien disconnects the video call and peels the bit of painter's tape off his phone camera. "Thanks, Marinette," he murmurs, sticking it on the back of the phone. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Get worse hugs?" Marinette suggests.

She's already plastered against his side, tucked under the same arm holding his phone, when he pulls her closer; Tom isn't sure whether to tell him later to be gentle with her heart or tell her later how proud he is that she put her heartbreak aside to help the boy as a friend. "I don't know," Tom says, "I hear I give really good hugs."

Adrien pales.

"Maybe later, Papa." Marinette twists a bit to wrap both arms around Adrien. "It sounds like he hasn't said the worst part yet."

"Nobody wanted to worry me over Maman being sick." Adrien is listing to one side a little, leaning on Marinette. "Father still thinks she'll come home, but it's been years, and—and probably she wanted to make sure, when she died, I wouldn't be who found her." He drops his phone in his lap, the better to fidget with his ring. "Nobody wants to worry me over Nathalie being sick. I think it's the same thing, but nobody _tells_ me things. Nobody ever wants to worry me about anything. I was holding Father's life in my literal hands tonight, and—" He draws another shaking breath.

Sabine has bustled back in with an armful of the blankets ordinarily banished to the closet at this time of year. "And it isn't fair," she agrees, setting the stack on the empty side of the sofa. "Your family doesn't want you to be scared, and your father doesn't understand that—well. There's a quip about mushrooms."

Adrien snorts. "Kept in the dark and fed bullshit?"

"Exactly," Tom says. The electric kettle clicks; he starts pouring into mugs already prepared with tea balls of Sabine's favorite loose-leaf black. "You're his son, not his future pizza topping." Adrien and Marinette sputter in unison.

"I won't say I don't understand his motivation," Sabine adds, draping one of the lighter blankets around both children, "but I hope that in his place, I would work to avoid adding to my child's pain."

"No comment," Marinette says. Tom winces and resolves to talk to both his girls about the family finances. Tomorrow. When Adrien isn't in crisis on their sofa.

"No comparison," Adrien replies at once. "I'm—I don't—" He pauses again to breathe. "Nice pendant," he says. "Where'd you get it?"

"An antique jewelry box." Marinette peels herself off of Adrien enough to show Sabine the pendant; it's one Tom has seen her wearing a few times now, but as it looks like she simply found an old Chinese coin and tied a black cord through the square hole and didn't say a word about it, Tom didn't pay it much attention. "Didn't you have a matching bracelet at one point?"

"Ah. No." Judging by how Marinette's attention snaps to Adrien's ring when he says that, it's a pun on 'anneau'.

"Eyes up here," Marinette says, looking primly away from Adrien, whose gaze leaps from her neckline to her ears; Tom is gratified by the speed at which Adrien's face turns red.

"Stop teasing the poor boy," Sabine tells her. "Tom, your timer."

—Tom did not start a tea timer, did he—!

Adrien shakes his head, blush subsiding. "Please just tell me I'm crazy."

"Crazy awesome," Marinette says promptly.

"—Shut up."

Sabine leans up on tiptoes to embrace Tom, who is perfectly happy to be able to hug _someone_ who needs it, even if not the one who most does. "Does it feel like we missed something?" she whispers.

"I'll try to explain when Nino and Alya are here," Adrien says; it can't be in answer to Sabine, since from the far end of the living room, he couldn't have heard her. "But I—okay, so I'm crazy. Please tell me I'm _wrong_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me yesterday: I have the horrible suspicion this fic has gone off outline.
> 
> Also me yesterday: I did not even outline this fic! I am building up to a particular scene and then I will sled down from it!
> 
> Me today: — _Oh_. Okay. Shiny!

**Author's Note:**

> [My comment policy](https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/post/612627045048008704/as-a-fic-writer-i-need-every-reader-to-know): tl;dr happy comments make me happy. So do thinky comments, of course, but there exist jerks who think only thinky comments are worth anyone leaving.
> 
> Find me on [Dreamwidth](https://alexseanchai.dreamwidth.org/) and [Tumblr](https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/).


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